SPIRITUAL RETREAT

Artist Laura Fontaine finds peace in creating large-format landscapes

by ROBIN HOWARD

When Laura Fontaine was 4, her preschool teacher had to have a talk with her mother. The class had experimented with painting that day, and Laura got in trouble because she flatly but politely refused to leave the easel. She hasn’t stopped painting since. Today, Fontaine’s dreamy, contemporary impressionistic Lowcountry and mountain landscapes are represented by galleries throughout the South. She comes by her talent naturally; her mother was an interior designer with a significant presence in Atlanta, so Fontaine grew up traveling around Europe, helping her mom choose crates of art and antiques for clients.

Aside from a broad exposure to art, fabrics and antiques, the artist spent years painting her mother’s collection of blue and white porcelain in watercolors. “I painted hundreds of watercolors of my mother’s porcelain throughout college,” she says. After college, her mother encouraged her to attend The Finishing School in New York, one of the nation’s top schools for faux and decorative painting. That education led to starting a business glazing walls. “It was great because I was able to travel, but eventually, I was exhausted from climbing ladders and scaffolding, so I decided to start painting in oils.” Because of her former education in faux finishing, Fontaine now prefers to put a thin layer of Venetian plaster on her canvas and layer glazes, creating depth.

Fontaine’s inspiration comes from nature and her faith. She begins every day with two to four hours of prayer and reading before going to her studio to paint. Most days, she paints her view across the marsh or floats in her kayak and takes pictures or sketches for inspiration. “Painting is my serenity; it’s absolutely mandatory,” she says. “I love painting landscapes because they’re God’s creation. The colors He creates are just phenomenal; that’s why when people see a beautiful landscape, they’re drawn to it.”

Fontaine also occasionally paints still life, taking joy from the light, texture and colors. She also prefers to paint large, working on canvases that range from 48-by-72 inches to 30-by-40 inches and sizes in between.

Spend just a few minutes with Fontaine and it’s clear that her faith is at the center of everything she does. “I have always walked closely with God. Naming my paintings after His words from scripture seems only natural to me since he gave me the gift of painting. I also know most of my clients prefer to have some reference to God on their painting. It just means more to them, and I feel the same,” Fontaine says.

In addition to gallery representation, Fontaine works with clients all over the United States on commission, which allows them to have the right size, colors and vision of what they would like to have hanging on their walls.

Fontaine completes about 40 paintings a year, primarily commissions and mostly for people who share her faith. As she looks to the future, she envisions holding art retreats for people diagnosed with an illness or who want to learn more about serenity in healing oneself. “Not just a workshop where people drink wine and watch me paint,” she says. “I want to teach the spiritual part of painting that encompasses everything God provides. None of us knows where the world is going, but I know I want to help others be at peace so they can heal.” *

Robin Howard is a freelance writer in Charleston. See more of her work at robinhowardwrites.com.

Timeless Art

GD Whalen Photography captures the fragile in a frame

by WENDY SWAT SNYDER

An emerald green spring leaf blown up to reveal tiny dew drops; an orange, freeze-framed, splashing into water; a bigger than life cheetah caught mid-stride; a sun-drenched dome on an ancient Greek Isle; a glacial crystal resting on black volcanic rock. Gary Whalen of GD Whalen Photography walks the world with camera in hand, drawing attention to the natural landscape and everything it supports. With both macro and large-format techniques, he captures the essence of his subjects. Life, big and small, comes into sharp focus for the viewer when observing Whalen’s very personal style of photography.

“My eye is drawn to the little things people walk by and don’t notice,” Whalen says. His lifelong love of photography is matched by a passion for drawing attention to both the beauty and the vulnerability of the planet.

“All my animal photos are animals shot in the wild,” he says. “I love being out there in nature— Africa, Alaska, Iceland—wherever it takes me. I love the peace of it, the sounds of it, the smells of it. Lately, I have to look hard to find a natural landscape.”

An avid photographer since he started snapping pictures as a kid with a Kodak Instamatic, the artist confesses he’s a bit of an introvert, leading him to vacillate between the landscape and portrait worlds.

“I hung my hat on portraiture, but it involved dealing with people’s idiosyncrasies,” he admits. “I decided to do what I really have a passion for, creating images of the earth that really resonate with people. Animals are so pure; there’s nothing malicious about them. We have to do a better job of taking care of them.”

Sustainability is a priority for Whalen, who is based in the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, where he’s surrounded by nature. He says he got rid of his darkroom in college because the chemicals were terrible for the environment. And he believes that collecting photographic art should be an investment that brings decades of enjoyment to multiple generations. To ensure that long-term return, he offers clients the Crystal Archival Gallery Print—a piece preserved using the face-mounting process.

“The typical lifetime for unprotected art is approximately 10 years,” he notes. “Face mounting maintains it in pristine condition for well over 100 years. The photograph is printed on very thin metallic paper and coated with a gallery-quality acrylic. It’s a very difficult process employed by only a handful of folks in the country.”

The process encapsulates the image, providing protection from dust, moisture and 97% of UV rays; it also prevents the shifting of colors, enabling a display true to the image’s original brilliance and beauty over time.

“I wouldn’t do this unless I could guarantee it would last a lifetime,” says Whalen. “And you can’t compete with the color saturation and clarity.”

Whalen points out that face mounting is just one facet of his craft. It’s important to him that collectors understand his overarching process.

“I take the picture, I print the picture, I do the face mounting,” he says. “Nothing goes to the customer that isn’t touched by me. I do it all myself. I don’t oversaturate my work, nothing is added or taken away. My pictures are honest—what you see is what I saw.”

Whalen feels fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with some of the profession’s best photographic equipment— brands such as Leica, Hasselblad, Pentax, Arca-Swiss, Zeiss and Schneider.

“I’ve had great lenses and great cameras,” he says. “But after all these years, I realized that, honestly, a great shot or great image comes down to content. Content is king.”

And his film of choice is large-format, which produces images with very high resolution that in turn can be blown up to create a stronger impact.

Whalen personalizes each print with a note card, describing his thought process as he seeks and frames his content. Here is a sample of his musing from a piece titled Old Man River: “I took this image at Caddo Lake in Texas. Boating through this incredible place takes your imagination back to the time of the dinosaurs. Hearing your paddle swishing through the water with only the sight of these magnificent, moss-covered cypress trees is like time travel. Caddo Lake is stunning, especially in the fall when the cypress trees turn a reddish-brown color.”

“I like to share what was on my mind while I was taking the picture, to help people connect,” he concludes. *

Wendy Swat Snyder is a Charleston-based freelance writer (sweetgrassandgrits.com). GD